We chose a color

If you’ve ever purchased clothing online, you already know what I’m going to say: Judging color online—if you are at all picky—is nearly impossible. The simple reason is that most digital cameras are not designed to give accurate colors, most digital file formats are not designed to give accurate colors, and most computer monitors are not designed to give accurate colors. Put them all together and, surprise!, you don’t get accurate colors.

To finalize our choice of color for our Noovo, we drove down to the headquarters in Las Vegas. We met Sloan (our factory rep), who we had met before at the Tahoe RV show in October, and he gave us a tour of the factory, and he showed us the vans.

Noovo offers four choices of color, a Granite, a Silver, a Grey, and one called Cashmere. These are standard Ram Promaster van colors, although the names of the colors are slightly different. Noovo used to offer additional colors—they had a red in for service and a blue one that they take to RV shows on the lot when we were there, either one of which would have risen to the top of my list if they were offered, but nowadays it’s only the four.

Why only four? And why only these four? I asked and the answer is a little sad. The reds and the blues and any others they offered outside of this narrow neutral palette just didn’t sell. You can see the truth of this by going to any large parking lot. What do you see but white, silver, black, bronze, and grey. Oh, sure. There are a few reds (sort of the official non-neutral color of car colors) and maybe a blue or two, but if you remove from the lot all of the cars that fit into these narrow color categories, you will have very few cars left. Car buyers, and van buyers, too, seem insecure about color, they seem to follow the instinct to blend in with others, to make the safe choice.

Neither my wife nor I liked the silver and ruled it out immediately. I can’t say why we didn’t like it, but it didn’t strike us as having the right character for our own RV.

The Cashmere was far too tan for us, the Granite far too dark, and so we ended up at Grey, or as Noovo calls it, Ceramic Grey. It is warmer in color than it appears on the Noovo web page. Ceramic Grey isn’t a “metallic” paint of like some of the others, but it does have a certain presence, a certain vibe. Sloan said it was his favorite color of them all (I don’t think he was making that up—he’s said the same thing on a YouTube video walkthrough filmed by one of the Noovo enthusiast-ambassadors) and also said that Ram used to charge $7000 extra for this color in past years. 

So Ceramic Grey it is for us.

The interior color was more difficult to choose. 

Noovo offers two choices in interior color. One (the original color they offered) is an overall “Scandinavian Oak,” which is a light tan color on the wood surfaces and a light-tone natural gray on the cabinetry. The newer color is the “Heritage Walnut,” with much darker walnut wood surfaces and a sage green color for the cabinetry. 

West coast buyers seem to favor the Scandinavian, the East coast buyers seem to favor the Walnut/Sage.

Lori and I both liked the Walnut/Sage (despite living in California) but were concerned that it would be too dark. In videos, the walnut/sage looks great, but of course, the camera is adjusting its exposure, perhaps giving a misleading image. You can photograph a cave by candlelight, after all, and make it look as bright as you want. However, in person, the Walnut/Sagewas not that much darker than the Scandinavian at all, no doubt helped by the spacious feeling the interior of the van offers with its seven-foot ceilings.

In January when driving near Las Vegas coming back from an opening of a show of my photographs in Albuquerque, we stopped by again, just to be sure.

And so, Heritage Walnut it is for us.

Choosing the van color was one of the most vexing choices to make in buying a Noovo, and you really should make your choice in person.